Mascara, madness and murder at the Outgames

An homage to Bette Davis, with a little bit of Joan Crawford and Gloria Swanson thrown in for good measure, local playwright David Blue presents Confessions of a Mad Drag Queen as part of the Vancouver 2011 Outgames cultural festival.

Starting out as a short monologue, as he tells us most of his plays do, Blue has expanded Confessions into a full-length play that he says quickly turns into a “serious drama/melodrama”.

“Well, serious as one can get when your main character is an insane, older, homicidal, drag queen,” said Blue. “I just loved the idea of this crazy old drag queen who has spent the last twenty years in prison for murder. It all grew from that.”

Originally targeting an April run for Confessions of a Mad Drag Queen Blue says that after being contacted by Outgames organizers to be part of the games cultural festival he decided to postpone the show.

“As I told [Outgames Chair] John [Boychuck], I felt that as wonderful as the cultural side of the Olympics were they seemed more national and not Vancouver specific. There are so many talented writers, performers, singers and artists in Vancouver, enough to fill several festivals.”

Having worked on the script for Confessions for just over two years, Blue says this is version fourteen of the show.

“There have been many changes with each version. The first version was very funny and very, very camp! I admit with each version the play got a little darker. “

But while perhaps a little darker through its progressive versions, Blue is still very much grounded in comedy having written such other gay-themed comedies as Memoirs of a Single Gay White Male, Happy Birthday and The Most Happy Fag in the World.

“I love comedy,” he said. “I find comedy much easier then drama to write. Oddly enough though, all three projects I am working on now, besides the web series, are dramas plus my second full length musical.”

The web series Blue mentions is SGWM, an online series based on his 2007 play Memoirs of a Single Gay White Male which will feature several of the actors from the original theatrical version. While not sure when the series will actually launch, he says he is having a lot of fun with the project.

Also in the works, along with the upcoming Confessions of a Mad Drag Queen and the web series, are two more shows over the next year including Blue’s newest play The Man in the Park.

But while we wait for these new projects from Blue and his Raving Theatre, we’ll just have to make do with a “delicious evening of mascara, madness and murder” at the Outgames.

Twenty years ago, Miranda Rights snapped and went on a murderous rampage. She shot her lover, her protégé and her worst enemy. Now at last, Miranda reveals what led up to that fateful night to an eager author. But all is not as it seems as Miranda’s life and sanity begin to unravel again. Visit http://www.ticketstonight.ca for tickets and information.